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The mountain cryosphere is one of the strongest affected systems by climate change. Glacier shrinkage leads to cascading impacts, including changes in river flow regimes, availability of water resources for downstream populations and economy, changes in the occurrence and severity of natural hazards, and cultural changes associated with landscape character and identity. In this study, we analyze impacts of mountain cryosphere change through a lens of Loss and Damage (L&D), a mechanism of international climate policy that tries to evaluate and reduce negative consequences of climate change for societies. We analyze the effects of climate change on glacier change, glacier lake formation and growth, hydrological regimes, and associated impacts on human societies in the Cordillera Blanca in the Peruvian Andes, now and under future scenarios. We use various methods such as literature review, glacial lake outburst flood, and hydrologic modeling to examine three major dimensions of cryospheric change and associated human impacts: (i) ice loss; (ii) glacial hazards; and (iii) variability of water availability. We identify the damage and losses in terms of the number of people affected by glacial hazards, monetized agricultural crop loss due to water loss, and non-economic values local people attribute to glacier loss. We find that different levels of warming have important negative but differentiated effects on natural and human systems. We also contend that the extent of loss and damage will largely be determined by governance and adaptation decisions such as water resource management and disaster risk management. We suggest that these lines of evidence are more explicitly taken into account in L&D policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glacierized mountains are often referred to as our world's water towers because glaciers both store water over time and regulate seasonal stream flow, releasing runoff during dry seasons when societies most need water. Ice loss thus has the potential to affect human societies in diverse ways, including irrigation, agriculture, hydropower, potable water, livelihoods, recreation, spirituality, and demography. Unfortunately, research focusing on the human impacts of glacier runoff variability in mountain regions remains limited, and studies often rely on assumptions rather than concrete evidence about the effects of shrinking glaciers on mountain hydrology and societies. This article provides a systematic review of international research on human impacts of glacier meltwater variability in mountain ranges worldwide, including the Andes, Alps, greater Himalayan region, Cascades, and Alaska. It identifies four main areas of existing research: (1) socioeconomic impacts; (2) hydropower; (3) agriculture, irrigation, and food security; and (4) cultural impacts. The article also suggests paths forward for social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences research that could more accurately detect and attribute glacier runoff and human impacts, grapple with complex and intersecting spatial and temporal scales, and implement transdisciplinary research approaches to study glacier runoff. The objective is ultimately to redefine and reorient the glacier-water problem around human societies rather than simply around ice and climate. By systematically evaluating human impacts in different mountain regions, the article strives to stimulate cross-regional thinking and inspire new studies on glaciers, hydrology, risk, adaptation, and human–environment interactions in mountain regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Climate change adaptation measures can generate long-term unintended consequences, as this paper demonstrates through an empirical case study of water conflicts at Lake Parón in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range. This decade-long struggle culminated in 2008 when a coalition of local groups (stakeholders) from the Cruz de Mayo and Caraz communities in the Callejón de Huaylas seized control of the Lake Parón reservoir from a private multinational corporation, Duke Energy. This clash over Parón's water in the Llullán and Santa River watersheds emerged much earlier than climatic-hydrologic models had predicted, and it occurred, this paper argues, largely because of previously successful climate adaptation measures. The drainage tunnel and floodgates originally installed at Parón in the 1980s to prevent a climate-related outburst flood led to unintended or perverse outcomes because these technological artifacts subsequently allowed a diversity of stakeholders--including rural subsistence farmers, urban residents, national park officials, tourism promoters, the state energy company Electroperú, and Duke Energy--to manage water differently depending on their priorities and the existing governance structures. Neoliberal reforms that altered state-society-environment relations in Peru played a key role in these changing stakeholder power dynamics that were reflected in the management of water infrastructure at Parón. Examining this water conflict that emerged from the unintended effects of climate adaptation demonstrates not only how technology and society are mutually constitutive, but also why the politics of technologies must be considered more carefully in the analysis of social-ecological systems, hydro-social cycles, and climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under current climate change and future scenarios, the mountain cryosphere is one of the strongest affected systems. In addition to sea level rise, glacier shrinkage will lead to cascading impacts on downstream systems and profoundly influence the natural environment. This will lead to major changes to river flow regimes, altered provision of water resources to human society, reorganization of the regulatory processes that shape water quality and geohazards, and cultural changes associated with tourism, landscape character, and identity.To address these challenges, we analyze impacts from mountain cryosphere change through a lens of Loss and Damage, a conceptual mechanism of international climate policy that tries to evaluate negative consequence of climate change for humankind but mainly operates on a broad worldwide scale. Climate change research on the other hand deals with climate change on different scales, down to local scales, but often lacks the connection of effects of climate change to consequences for people. Here, we try bridging policy and research and identify the connection of the two, using the example of the changing cryosphere in the Cordillera Blanca in the Peruvian Andes. We specifically analyze the effects of climate change on glacier change, glacier lake growth and formation and ensuing floods, hydrological effects and impacts on people and economy now and under future scenarios. To do so, we use various different methods such as literature review, glacial lake outburst floods modelling and hydrologic modelling to particularly analyze losses and damages related to three major cryospheric changes: ice loss, glacial hazards and hydrologic variability.Within each category, we identified major implications such as damage to people and assets, loss of life, damage of livelihoods, economic loss and damage, loss of natural resources or loss of culture and identity. Hence, we argue that Loss and Damage cannot be simply defined as glacier shrinkage and sea level rise as it is commonly done in global climate policy documents and discourse. It also plays a major role for other consequences due to the retreat of glaciers. This study therefore gives further implications for the connection of policy and research based work, and highlights the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating glacier recession in tropical highlands and in the Peruvian Andes specifically is a manifestation of global climate change that is influencing the hydrologic cycle and impacting water resources across a range of socio-environmental systems. Despite predictions regarding the negative effects of long-term glacier decline on water availability, many uncertainties remain regarding the timing and variability of hydrologic changes and their impacts. To improve context-specific understandings of the effects of climate change and glacial melt on water resources in the tropical Andes, this article synthesizes results from long-term transdisciplinary research with new findings from two glacierized Peruvian watersheds to develop and apply a multi-level conceptual framework focused on the coupled biophysical and social determinants of water access and hydro-social risks in these settings. The framework identifies several interacting variables—hydrologic transformation, land cover change, perceptions of water availability, water use and infrastructure in local and regional economies, and water rights and governance—to broadly assess how glacier change is embedded with social risks and vulnerability across diverse water uses and sectors. The primary focus is on the Santa River watershed draining the Cordillera Blanca to the Pacific. Additional analysis of hydrologic change and water access in the geographically distinct Shullcas River watershed draining the Huaytapallana massif towards the city of Huancayo further illuminates the heterogeneous character of hydrologic risk and vulnerability in the Andes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]